Colors I See
by MajesticNinjaRen
Summary: Prompt: Tsuna is blind, but that never stopped him from seeing colors.
1. Prologue

_Prompt- He was blind, but that never stopped him from seeing colors._

 **Prologue:**

* * *

When Tsuna came out legs first, and Nana was alerted of possible strangulation if she didn't start pushing harder- _harder? what harder? Her lower body was already numb. The world was spinning. She could already feel the tendrils of a lying sandman wrapping its grasp around her consciousness promising a peace of mind if she just closed her eyes. But, no. She was pushing. She wasn't resting. She didn't want to rest. She just wanted this baby out. Safely. Oh, god. Please come out safely. Her baby boy. How is he? Is he breathing?_ \- she thought the world was going to end.

It might as well had ended when the baby- _Tsuna, her baby boy Tsuna_ \- was finally out, and she noticed the concern on the surrounding staff's faces. What? What is it now?

Then, she realized.

He wasn't crying.

They whisked him away to another room.

They told her they needed to do extra tests.

They told her it would all be alright.

As far as she was concerned, nothing would be alright until she finally had the chance to hold her baby boy, see his eyes, feel his warmth, and hear his little heart beating.

It was at that point that she had lost consciousness.

 _If only Iemitsu was here_ , was the last thought she had before darkness took over.

* * *

When she woke up, it was no longer night time, instead there were rays of morning light peeking in through the window, and she was lying on a hospital bed. Her mind was fuzzy. She still felt disoriented. She was reaching for the nurse call when it had occurred to her that her lower body had a slight numbness, and then she finally remembered.

 _Her baby._

With a new sense of urgency, she fumbled with the buttons, hitting the call more times than she probably should have.

They raced in, questions on the tip of her tongue as they noticed her chaotic state.

 _Tsuna, tsuna, tsuna, tsuna, oh god tsuna._

"My baby..." She managed to whisper out.

From there, things settled down. They checked her over. Told her all the information she needed to know about her child, what to expect from then on. It was all going well, and then they abruptly dropped a bomb on her as one of the nurses carried her child in.

"I'm sorry. Ms. Sawada, but your son is blind."

She felt the nurse place her little boy in her arms, and she looked down at his still form.

Their eyes met. Her own caramel orbs met his mild brown, deadened eyes.

She wanted to cry.

She failed him.

She failed her child.

She should have eaten better food. She shouldn't have gotten sick so often. She shouldn't have fallen that one time. _She shouldn't have- she shouldn't have- she shouldn't have- she should't have-_

She smiled and pulled him closer to her body.

"Tsuna, my perfect little Tsuna. I'm so happy you're alright. We'll get through this. Mama's strong. You're strong..."

She was lying.

She was lying to her own innocent child.

The only thought that kept repeating in her mind was she had failed her poor baby.

He wouldn't get a chance to see the flowers she planted for him. He wouldn't get the chance to even see the sky. He wouldn't know what a smile looks like. He wouldn't know what it means to see a twinkle in another person's eye. How pretty a sunny day could be. How beautiful the ocean was. He wouldn't know what his own mother looks like. He wouldn't even know what-

She felt a tiny little hand wrap itself as much as it could around her own trembling one.

Her heart stopped for a beat, and she realized once more how fortunate she was.

Her baby was alive, well, and breathing.

That's all that mattered right now.

* * *

What she didn't realize was that Tsuna could see. Except, he didn't see what other's saw. He didn't see his mother's forced smile as she whispered words of comfort and love. He saw a flame- a beautiful, warm, slightly wavering yellow flame.

As if it was calling out to him, the flame would flicker in his direction, and in response, he had held up his small hand to reach out for it.

What he grasped had not been the strange flame he couldn't quite comprehend yet, his hand had grabbed his own mother's larger one and fisted it tightly.

He didn't see his mother's tears flow down her face and her smile become a slight bit more sincere, but he did see the yellow flame glow brighter and somehow more beautiful than before.

* * *

Tsuna may have been born without sight, but he hadn't been born without a way of seeing.

Instead of sharp outlines and plastered emotions, he saw flames- colorful flames that belied so much more.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

* * *

By the time Tsuna was three and speaking jumbles of words that sometimes made sense but more likely didn't, Nana realized that somehow, Tsuna probably had the best of judge of character she has ever known.

It started out on a small scale, when he was still an infant, little enough for her hold with one arm.

He would always cry whenever particular people were within a certain radius of her.

At first she wrote it off as a coincidence, it couldn't have been that he knew the man was a pickpocket.

Nor that the guy on the bus was an insufferable pervert.

Or that the woman at the flower shop was creating fake rumors about her behind her back.

And, he definitely couldn't have known that she had been cheated at the market when it turned out some of the groceries she had ordered and went to pick up had already expired.

But, then, he started learning words- bad and good being two of his favorites. Something she figured was due to her own method of scolding him. Whenever he did something wrong, she said it was bad, and vice versa for the opposite. It was simplistic, but it worked. She had yet to see him purposely repeat the same mistake twice.

On a whim, she kept a distance from the people he pointed out as bad. Her efforts, she found, bred fruition not long after. Not only was she happier, but Tsuna was as well. The 'good' bonds she had ignored before in favor of the 'bad' ones had grown, and she soon had a close knit group of people she could trust. In addition, she was somehow able escape situations that before would have been inevitable.

All it took was a single mumble of 'bad' and teary eyes, and she was gone without preamble.

By the time she no longer considered her actions to be based on a whim, the first large scale happening occurred.

Tsuna was three, and his vocabulary had broadened. He was able to use words she taught in case of an emergency. They were all variations on bad, but they did what they needed to.

She had just been about to enter the bank when Tsuna tugged on her sleeve, and with a disturbing amount of accuracy despite the obvious, he pointed over at an all around average appearing man standing in line and waiting patiently for his turn. He was glancing around every so often. _Out of boredom or curiosity,_ she would have assumed any other time had she looked at him absentmindedly.

"Bad." She heard her son whisper. "Scary bad."

Her eyes chose that opportune moment to notice a silver glint in his pocket. Was it a gun or knife? She didn't know, and she didn't hesitate to ponder on the fact. She resolutely walked towards the nearest security guard and alerted him of her suspicions.

Not even ten minutes later, police sirens could be heard, and the man was trying to struggle out of the two policemen's grasp.

Apparently, he was a serial bank robber.

She didn't know how to process that information, and when she moved her gaze from the struggling man to her own son who was wrapped firmly in her arms and clutched tightly to her chest, his own eyes open and watching the situation, her mind blanked out.

She didn't know what to think of anything. It was all beyond her. No matter how many nights she stayed awake and tried to understand it all, she couldn't.

"Tsuna, let's go home." She forced her usual sunny smile and walked away from the scene. They could finish their original intended business some other time.

She had to be alone. Even if she couldn't figure it out, she still needed time to think.

There was a faint thought of, _maybe I should call Iemitsu,_ but she quickly shook it away. Like everything else that has seemed to happen in her life, she didn't understand why; she just knew that if she called him, she would somehow regret it.

 _Let's just say that it's a woman's intuition,_ she thought with morbid humor.

She would later come to a conclusion that she didn't need to know or have an answer to all her confusion. It would come in time, she figured. She just needed to know that her son was special, and that she was alone in handling it all. And, that she wasn't enough.

As she was now, she was nowhere near enough.

She needed to improve herself.

Therefore, she started taking self-defense classes and began carrying a taser in her purse.

* * *

In the next few months and soon to come years, she learned that those two decisions had somehow become two of the greatest she has ever made (aside from having Tsuna of course, and in accordance her marriage, even if she did feel her emotions dull for the absent man as time passed).

Often- sometimes with a more obvious visual of men in black, and other times with a more discreet appearance of mundane- people would show up. It could be at her front door. It could be at the market. It could be at the part-time job she took up. It could be when she was walking down the street or at the park.

They all had something in common though.

First, a creepy interest in her child judging from the subtle glances towards him, and second, the quick teary eyes Tsuna showed and the absolute fear on his face whenever they greeted hello.

She couldn't have punched them in the solar plexus, taken her taser out, or dialed 119 any more quickly.

* * *

Of course, with the bad came the good, and with the unnerving (and disturbing, so very disturbing) amounts of people after her and her child's life, it wasn't all that strange that she found friendship in the chief of police's wife. She was also quite happy to know that her new friend had a son two years older than her own. It was a relief to know that in the future when she could no longer be by Tsuna's side at all times, there would be someone else there to look out for him.

Furthermore, there was too the budding friendship between her and both her boss and his wife, who incidentally also had a child of Tsuna's age (whom with one smile from Tsuna began to stick to him like glue). She would ultimately consider it something of a blessing as it was like having a second home.

(And, eventually, there was a third home when the youngest Hibari finally accepted her child into his 'pack.' He was such a cute kid with all his animal analogies.)

* * *

But, then it all came crashing down when Tsuna was five, and her husband and his boss came by to visit.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

There was always this lingering thought of, _it's not worth it,_ in Nana's mind whenever she thought of Iemitsu and their marriage.

She didn't quite mind his physical absence as she figured he had a good reason for it. In another life, she could see herself being head over heels loyal to him until the very end. In spite of everything, she was a romanticist at heart, so, as long as he returned and still managed somehow to sweep her off her feet, she would have been content. However, this wasn't another life.

This was her current life. The one she was living right at this moment, and so far, way too much has happened for her to ever consider being his one constant. The sunny place he could return to that would never change and always accept him with open arms- no matter how romantic that sounded. After all, physical absence she could handle, absence of emotional support she could not. Once they were married, he had never been there for her emotionally.

He never even responded to her calls when she had hit lows in her depression- during the short duration of time when she allowed herself weakness. It was usually in the peak of the night when Tsuna was out cold and not likely to wake up for hours.

The one time he did answer, he hung up on her not a second after she told him that _she was physically okay just_ \- she never got to finish her sentence. The postcard she got in the mail a few days later of him in Africa standing beside an elephant and holding his usual pickax did nothing for her.

Not even the neatly scrawled, _sorry for hanging up so suddenly, there was an emergency and-_ she didn't finish reading that excuse. She trashed the postcard like he seemed to be doing to their relationship.

What right did he have to treat her as his anchor when he didn't act as her own.

Therefore, when one day not a postcard but a genuine letter came in the mail notifying her of his soon to be visit with his boss in toll, she had very mixed feelings. It would be the first time she had seen him in years. The last being around a month before she went into labor. Consequently, it will be the first time he has ever met Tsuna as well. And, despite it all, she wanted to give him one last chance, to see if they could mend their broken relationship. (One-sidely broken, it seemed. She wondered if he had even noticed her gradual distance.)

She regretted ever allowing him that small chance.

The end result was a divorce paper with her signature tucked into her night table, waiting for when he came back to visit again. She didn't even have an emergency address after all- just a measly phone number that may or may not be answered.

This time, she was resolute on her position. She doesn't know what or how he did it, but that didn't matter. It was the fact that he did do it and didn't even realize the extent of his damage that persists her decision on the matter.

Never had she seen her little boy so lost and utterly empty before.

* * *

It was on a sunny, summer day, a couple months before Tsuna would officially start Kindergarten, that Iemitsu and his boss- _Timoteo, when he introduced himself with a fatherly smile. Nono, Iemitsu would later call him when she was no longer in the room, and he thought that she couldn't hear them-_ showed up on her doorstep, and she greeted them with her usual welcoming smile. All the while, she kept a clear vantage point of Tsuna to see how he reacted to the two of them.

She noticed how Timoteo gave her son that subtle, interested look (minus the creepiness, thank goodness) that she was so used to seeing, and she tensed up. She only relaxed a little when she noticed how Tsuna wasn't tearing up or sending her alert glances. He only looked confused.

She didn't know if that was the better option though.

 _She would later realize that it definitely wasn't._

"Don't be shy, Tsuna. Greet your papa and his friend." She cooed but subtly touched his shoulder as a sign to be cautious.

He smiled and behaved in a way that made her wonder when her son had become such a great actor (if she wasn't keeping up appearances herself, she would have frowned at that fact, but that was something to worry about at another time). He bowed towards the wall, a bit off but close enough to their positions (it was what they would expect of a blind child after all) and greeted them in a soft, kind voice that was so innately him that she could feel her own smile turn a bit more sincere.

"Hello papa. Hi mister." And then he shyly hid behind her leg. She wanted to hug him at the action but held herself back.

"Maa." She clapped her hands once to gain all their attention. "Why don't we all head to the dining room. I've cooked up quite a feast."

For now, all she could do was watch.

* * *

 _If only she had intervened- if only she had intervened- if only she had intervened- if only she had intervened- if only she didn't let that blasted man get so close to her child!_

It seemed harmless. They had been there for two whole days with plans of leaving right before sunset. Iemitsu had been the most gentlemanly she had ever seen him- wooing her at every chance. She could feel her cold heart for him warm up the slightest bit. Timoteo was a gentleman as well and even treated Tsuna like his own grandson. Tsuna seemed happy. Tsuna liked him.

 _If only she had intervened._

Tsuna was outdoors playing- near enough to the house where she could reach him at moment's notice. It was as usual in her and Tsuna's routine to allow him that small freedom. He needed to learn what it was like to rely on one's self. She didn't want him to end up like her. She took too long. It wasn't until recently had she started to realize what it was like to be self sufficient. She didn't even touch the money Iemitsu deposited into her bank account anymore.

But, then, one of the neighbor's dogs had somehow gotten loose.

Tsuna was terrified of dogs, having been bitten a few months before. The memory was still fresh on both of their minds, worse for Tsuna as he couldn't even see the animal. That bit was left to his imagination. All he knew of was her scream of horror, the feeling of the sharp fangs as they pierced his skin, and the pain, so much pain- it all had traumatized him. Even the smallest dog, as long as it barked, had him trembling him in fear.

It had gotten too close without him knowing, and it barked causing him to have a panic attack.

As soon as she heard his first burst of shouts, a semblance to his sometimes nightly terrors, she was out of her chair and about to bolt outside to help him. Only to be halted by a masculine hand on her shoulder and a soft push back, _don't worry,_ his eyes said. And, then she saw both her husband and her boss go through the back door to attend to Tsuna.

 _If only she hadn't allowed that._

The shouts and crying ceased, and she felt a momentary relief. Her gut chose that moment, however, to tell her that something wasn't right. _Go. Go. Go. Go. Help him now._ And, she did.

She rushed over.

She only paused in her step for a single heart beat when she noticed her child's wide eyes meet hers before he abruptly passed out.

"He will be alright." They said.

"He's just exhausted." They told her.

" _I sealed his flames."_ She heard later on as she passed by the living room to check once more on the still out cold Tsuna.

 _Flames._ A faint memory she had filed away came to mind. One where she sat in front of the fire, Tsuna in her lap, his face contemplative. Something she had grown used to despite his young age. Her boy was special after all.

" _Something wrong?" She had asked tentatively._

 _He tilted his head in response and pointed towards the fireplace._

" _What is that?" He asked._

 _She hmmed and wondered what exactly he was referring to. She took a guess._

" _Do you mean the flames of the fire? It's what causes the heat and warmth you are feeling right now." She explained. He nodded cutely and then said something she would never forget._

" _I guess I see flames then."_

Her gut dropped, and she felt as if there was a lump in her throat. _Oh, god. Oh, no._

She just realized something important. She wasn't quite able to comprehend it, yet. But, she knew it had something to do with her child; it was what allowed him to see without seeing. She knew.

Tsuna wasn't exhausted from crying or facing his trauma.

No, those ignorant men- that knew nothing about her child except the superficial traits- did something to him. They were the cause of his current state.

She hurried up the stairs.

What she found she would never forget.

* * *

Tsuna was awake when she walked in.

But, he wasn't himself.

His eyes were wide and tears were pouring down his cheeks. His whole body was trembling. His hands fisted the blankets on top of him tightly.

She accidentally kicked the door when she stepped in.

He jumped in shock.

"Who's there?!"

He was looking in her general direction. He didn't recognize her. Her hand flied to her mouth in a failed attempt to hold back the sob that was about force itself from her throat.

 _No.  
No-no-no-no-no-_

She didn't remember walking over or pulling his small body into her arms. She didn't know exactly what she saying- only that she was trying to comfort him. She didn't feel her own tears fall down her face.

Her mind only focused on the small whisper her son had kept repeating before he ultimately fell unconscious again.

" _I can't see anything."_

After holding his sleeping form tightly to her chest, this time to comfort her own self for a few minutes more, she finally let him go and tucked the blanket around him.

She steeled herself before going downstairs.

* * *

She plastered a smile when sunset came around, and they were readying themselves to leave.

They knew her smile was fake.

They both looked at her with concern in their eyes.

She didn't care.

She just wanted them to leave.

And, they left.

* * *

For the next two weeks, Sawada Nana would cry herself to sleep.

For the next two weeks, her son would lie in a hospital bed.

For the next two weeks, Sawada Tsunayoshi was in a state of comatose.


End file.
